Perhaps you’re just getting to grips with search engine optimisation (SEO) and adding pay-per-click (PPC) to the mix seems a little too complicated. However, the two techniques work best in unison.

Pay-per-click advertising involves bidding against other companies or sites for keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant. If your bid for a relevant search term is higher than a rival’s, your page will appear above theirs in the sponsored links at the top of the search page. The best news is, you will only part with your money if someone clicks on your advert.

Using PPC effectively involves:

1. Focusing on the right search engine

The most-used search engines are Google and Yahoo, so these should yield the highest PPC earnings. Choose one and set up either a Google AdWords or a Yahoo Sponsored Search account.

2. Choosing your keywords and phrases

Make these as specific as possible, for example “hair salons in Bristol” rather than “hairdressers”. You can optimise these over time by using sites such as Google Analytics to find out how your customers are responding to your search terms and altering the ones that aren’t working well.

3. Advertising with care

You will need a short advert with a heading, a few words of text and a URL link. Avoid hard selling, but make sure you cover the main points of what your business does and how your customers can benefit by using your company.

4. Fixing a budget

Consider what proportion of your marketing budget you are willing to devote to PPC. For example, if your product retails at £50, you typically spend £5 marketing per product and one in every five PPC visit results in a sale, it is worth spending around £1 per click.

5. Linking to a relevant landing page

Make sure the page your advert links to is relevant to your customer and promotes a quick sale. Include a strong call to action, encouraging the site user to add your product to their basket or to call you for a quote.

While SEO takes time to show a return, PPC tends to deliver traffic quickly and effectively. For this reason, it makes sense to prioritise pay-per-click if you want quick sales. You can target the same high-yielding keywords in your SEO as you do through PPC once you have worked out which result in the highest sales figures.

And finally, remember that serving your customer is more important than keeping your search engine happy. It is vital that you provide good quality content and an enjoyable browsing experience as well as generating sales or boosting your search engine rankings.

If you need help setting up a PPC campaign, get in touch.

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